Wonder JenLisa AU

Chapter 3 ✓

Like a diamond in the sky.

Nighttime is the only time to go outside without a thick layer of processed fabric clothing on, since it's way safer. Nighttime usually finds Jennie and Lisa splayed out across the roof, staring up at the stars, and tonight, it is no different.

"Which one do you think we'll go to?" Lisa asks.

"That one," Jennie says, pointing.

"Hm... that one doesn't look so great, what about that one?" Lisa points to another one.

"What's wrong with the one I picked?" Jennie lets her hand fall.

Lisa shrugs, "Nothing, I just like that one better." Her hand falls too and their palms find each other, pressing, fingers lacing.

"What if I wanted to go to the one I picked?"

"Then I'd come with you."

"Even if you liked the other one better?"

"Of course."

Silence.

Jennie gives Lisa's fingers a squeeze, turning round to face her.

"We can go to your star."

"I thought you liked the other one better," Lisa grins, turning her head to catch Jennie's eye.

"Nah, changed my mind."

Lisa squeezes back. They close their eyes and doze to the sound of the wind through the air, thicker than it was before, more solid as it slides against their cheeks and their skin, pulling at their hair with its long, thin fingers, tugging right on the edges of their dreams. They fall asleep to the sound of each other's breathing--the last song the world will ever sing.

Morning comes with the rare chirrup of bird-song, because humans aren't the only creatures who are resilient and Darwinism still stands, gamma radiation or not. Things learn and die and adapt, things grow and shift and become. Things seek out ever more ways to survive, to live.

"Wake up, c'mon, the sun's gonna be up soon and we'll burn out here if we don't get inside." Jennie was tugging on Lisa's arms. Lisa stirs with a huge yawn and blinks up at Jennie, a soft smile on her face.

"Morning." Her voice is thick and sticky.

"Morning," Jennie says, blandly as she gives Lisa's arm another tug, eyeing the horizon. It's brightening by the second and they needed to get inside quick if neither of them wanted second degree burns. The atmosphere has deteriorated so much over the past twenty thousand years that the only reason oxygen is still plentiful enough is for the thin lattice of nanofibers braided and set over the entire world to keep oxygen atoms in, but they're not designed to keep the sun's harmful rays out. That's what the clothes and the tarps are for and staying in the sun too long, even far as it is now, could be deadly.

"Alright, alright, I'm up. I'm up." Lisa climbs to her feet, gathering their quilt from beneath her, almost stumbling as Jennie pulls her to the edge of the roof, hopping down the ladder towards the ground, jumping the last two rungs and landing with a drop and a roll. Lisa follows after, still yawning, at a decidedly slower pace, and Jennie is tapping her feet a mile a minute, holding the back door open for Lisa when she comes through.

"So chivalrous," Lisa says, grinning, voice still sleepy and soft.

"I try," Jennie says, rolling her eyes.

Lisa sets the quilt on the sofa and curls up again, outside the sun is rising, the windows darkening over to keep the most harmful rays out. Jennie shakes Lisa by the shoulders.

"Get uppp, I thought we were gonna go read today."

Lisa mumbles something and swats at Jennie's hand, who sighs and leans closer.

"One more time in a language I understand?"

"You can... read... I'm gonna... sleep."

"Ugh," Jennie lets out an exasperated groan and pushes away from the sofa. Lisa barely registers the--

thump, thump, thump

--of her footsteps down the stairs to the basement, or the decidedly slower thumps as she comes back up. But she does feel the weight the dip of the sofa under a decidedly heavier weight than she knows Jennie is. Lisa peers down at Jennie through one half-opened eyelid. Jennie has a stack of books on her lap, the Gardening for Dummies propped up against the top, nose buried in it.

Lisa closes her eyes, "What's it say?"

"I thought you wanted to sleep." Jennie's voice was flat, but the hitch tells Lisa that she's gloating. She loves gloating.

"I do."

"Then why do you wanna know what it says?"

"Curious."

"How're you gonna read it if you're sleeping?"

"Read it out loud."

"What?"

Lisa opens one eye again, a grin slipping over her lips, "Read it out loud. Then I'll know what it says and not have to read it myself. And I like your voice--you have a nice voice. I hear you singing in the public showers all the time."

Lisa can't really tell if it's the morning light hitting Jennie's face at just the right angle, or if she's just blushing too hard, but the effect is nice. Jennie's cheeks are a soft shade of morning pink, dipping in gold as she takes a deep breath and lowers her eyes to the page.

Lisa had never known so many things about cherry blossoms but she thinks that pretty as they may be, they'll never be quite as pretty as Jennie's blush that morning.

"I've decided that cherry blossoms are my favorite flower," Jennie says that night, their shoulders pressed, looking up at the night sky.

"You haven't even seen a real one before."

"Yeah, I know, but I saw them in that book and they're really pretty. And maybe when we get to this new planet and make friends with the people there, we can convince them to plant some."

"Jennie, you know that they're extinct right? Where are you gonna get the seeds?"

Jennie turns her head to give Lisa a look, "You wanna tell me that we've been able to genetically engineer human beings, control the entire genome down to the last letter, and we won't be able to reproduce a cherry tree seed to plant on whatever planet we're gonna land on?"

Lisa huffs. "Alright, alright. Point taken," and then she sighs, wistful and soft, "think it'll be nice there? Wherever we're going?"

"Better be--I'm trying to start the first ever zero-grav team there."

"All you need is a ball and a zero-grav field. That can literally be done anywhere in space cause no gravity in space, remember?"

"Yeah, but how awesome would it be to have like, aliens versus humans games?" Jennie is grinning too wide.

"You're so weird--one second you're talking about planting cherry trees, the next you're talking about orchestrating zero-grav football games between two species." Lisa shakes her head and lets out a laugh.

"What can I say? I'm a girl of many interests."

Lisa scoffs, but it turns into another laugh and she's nodding, "Of course you are--hey," she lifts her head up from the quilt and reaches around her, pulling out a book, a thin book, and flipping open the cover, digging a pocket fuse out to shine it on the pages.

"Which one's that?" Jennie asks, turning onto her stomach, chin resting against Lisa's shoulder.

"The Little Prince," Lisa says, pointing to a picture of a tiny blond-haired boy standing on a planet with flowers and tiny mountains.

"Is it good?" Jennie asks as Lisa flips to the first page. She shrugs.

"Dunno yet."

By the time they finish, the both of them feel like their hearts are going to pump right out of their mouths and they go to sleep promising each other to always love sunrises more than sunsets. And Lisa decides that this is her favorite book of all time.